going to be some hoopla, including a performance of it during the seventh-inning stretch of the All-Star Game — as far as I know, the first time that’s happened since 2001. No word on its use during the World Series. I’ve got my fingers crossed, but I assume Bud Selig has other ideas.

I haven’t been keeping up very well with the baseball songs page (although I’m planning to update it as part of a renovation of both baseballrelated.com and my personal site, hopefully by the end of the year if I get around to it). But it’s there, and its content is able to be searched, which is how I recently heard from a musician named Howie Newman.

He also has a couple of other original baseball songs on two more recent releases, also available via iTunes. And he has two baseball songs available as free downloads. One is off “Baseball’s Greatest Hits” and is called “Astroturf.” The other is more recent and is called — well, I don’t want to totally give away the surprise, so I’ll just say that my collection of baseball songs now includes musical mentions of Joe DiMaggio, Ozzie Smith, and Johnny Damon.

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Way back on May 31, 2004, I made reference to Larry Finlayson, singer of the “Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown” theme song. Courtesy of someone who recently found that post, I now have more information about him:

He was my teacher in elementary school in Berkeley, California. I happen to be recording his LP from 1979 to MP3 right now. It’s called, “Give Your Friend A Smile…”. It was recorded at the Music Annex under the name of Finlayson Music Production in 1979. Larry was/is indeed a songwriter and played the guitar in this album.

With those pieces of additional information in hand, a quick Yahoo! search reveals that he’s using a different name these days. And he’s available for weddings! I’d consider hiring him if the “Race for Your Life” theme is still a part of his repertoire, assuming I ever have a wedding.

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Yes, Dodger Stadium has new seats this season, in lovely pastel colors which really do look like they’re from 1962. They also renumbered the seats, so that instead of having aisle numbers, with seats starting at “1” on one side and “101” on the other side, the reserved level now has section numbers like a normal stadium. (Things were even weirder on the field and loge levels, with one row letter covering two rows, one with seat numbers increasing and the other with seat numbers decreasing — presumably,

Yes, quite a few Chicagoites will show up at Dodger Stadium when the Cubs are in town, wearing the world’s cutest baseball cap…

Someone near us had a radio, so I know that Vin Scully described 6-foot-7 Cubs pitcher Sean Marshall as “a tall drink of water”…

This game had something for everyone, from bone-jarring collisions to wildly errant throws. Best of all, though, is the fact that the Dodger Stadium music selection committee has provided the world with a new, particularly appropriate song to play for bases on balls: Tegan and Sara’s “Walking with a Ghost,” in the form of the White Stripes’ cover version. Why is it particularly appropriate? Because walks haunt.

Incidentally, $30 for a concert, not including the Ticketmaster “convenience” charges that brought it up to nearly $45, and I didn’t even get to sit down! Baseball is truly your best entertainment value, although it’s somewhat unlikely that you’ll hear a lot of Scottish art-school alterna-pop at a baseball game. (But if you are very lucky, you will hear “Walk Away Renee” — referred to in “Piazza, New York Catcher” — played on the organ.)

Hanger-on Dan just sent out an e-mail with the subject line “News of earth-shaking impact” that turned out to contain a link to an mlb.com news story and the words “Prepare to be a Reds fan.” Now, I don’t have an especially fast connection, and I was using much of the speed I do have to download clips of the new Australian version of “Family Feud,” so after I clicked on the link in Dan’s e-mail, it took quite a while to load. I pondered — what could it be? What could it be?

standing in line at the supermarket” comment specifically refers to when he was on his law firm’s softball team in the 1970s and they made him play right field. He should have listened to Peter, Paul and Mary’s inspirational song about playing that position!